Teenage hacker escapes jail

A STUDENT who admitted using computer billionaire Bill Gates's credit card details to send him Viagra tablets has been sentenced to psychiatric care.

Raphael Gray, 19, said after his trial at Swansea Crown Court, South Wales, that he had been mentally prepared to be jailed after pleading guilty to 10 charges of computer fraud.

But Judge Gareth Davies ordered the teenager to carry out a three-year community probation order linked to treatment for a mental disorder. Earlier he had heard that Gray had suffered from chronic low self-esteem since he was a child, which had contributed to the criminal acts he carried out on the internet.

Expert medical evidence put forward by the defence also showed that four years before the offences Gray had fallen and banged his head. The defence produced medical evidence arguing that his condition deteriorated to such an extent after the fall it eventually gave rise to the computer fraud he undertook.

A composed and smiling Gray said after the trial that he regretted not what he had done, but the way he did it. He said: "I would do it all again but another time I would choose to ensure that I acted legally."

Colin Nicholls QC, defending, had earlier told the court that the teenager had attacked secure sites on the internet and released the credit card details of thousands of people to demonstrate how bad security was.